In This Episode:
Our confidence must be in God and His promises. This episode reviews 4 important lessons we must learn from Caleb and Joshua in the Bible.
Episode Transcript:
Opening
Where do you find your confidence in your work? That’s the topic of today’s episode.
You’re listening to Your Faith At Work with Dr. Ryan S. Howard, a podcast to inspire and equip you to partner with God in your daily work. Visit your YourFaithAtWork.org to learn more and download your free copy of 21 Days to a New Workplace You.
Episode
There are many things that we can find our confidence in. It could be our work experience could be our skillset, it could be just things we know or the relationships we have. Whatever it is, there only one ultimate thing that is the best to have our confidence in.
Caleb, Joshua and Moses
To learn where our confidence should be, we can look at a story from the book of Numbers with Caleb, Joshua and Moses. There are four lessons that I want us to take away from this quick story.
This story is when Lord talked to Moses and told him to send spies into the land of Canaan, which He going to give to the people of Israel. This is the Promised Land that’s been talked about for many years, since the time they came out of Egypt. So Moses got the 12 spies, one from each of the tribes, and sent them into the land. Caleb and Joshua are among these spies.
So the 12 go into the land and they check it out for 40 days. They came back and they start giving their report. They brought the whole congregation of Israel together. They started giving a negative report and Caleb interrupted them. He said, “we can do it, let’s go up and take the land and occupy it.” And the other spies interrupted him and started to talk negatively about the land. They talked about how they saw giants in the land that made them look like grasshoppers. They claimed the giants would kill them and they shouldn’t go. All the people of Israel started to agree with them and saying that they shouldn’t go and that they should go back to Egypt. They even questioned why Moses “brought them out there to die.” They all became very doubtful.
Ten of the 12 spies were agreeing with the negative report and the people started to agree with them and rebel. Caleb and Joshua said that the land was exceedingly good land. They said that God delighted in them that He will bring them into the land and would give it to them. They said the Lord was with them.
They said do not fear the people in this land (Numbers 14:9) and the people rebelled against it. They didn’t want to do it.
Four Lessons
There’s four lessons here.
The first is God was their confidence. Caleb and Joshua were saying that the Lord was with them and to not fear the people in the land.
The second is the circumstances didn’t change their confidence at all. The circumstances did not look good. It was a fair assessment of the circumstances, but it ignored what God had said.
Which brings us to the third point. They trusted what God said in the beginning in Numbers 13:1, God said He was going to give the land to the Israelites and that was that. Caleb and Joshua trusted that. They went and did an assessment of the land, brought back the report and that’s what it was. But they trusted God with what God had said. He said He would be with them.
The fourth lesson is that they were bold to speak their conviction, even though they had taken an unpopular position. They were not scared. In fact, it was not only the 10 spies that were against them, it was the whole congregation of Israel that had risen up and was rebelling. But that didn’t change their willingness to share the unpopular position and to say the truth of what God had given them in their heart to say.
What About Us?
So turning to us, what’s our confidence? Is our confidence just in some external thing or experience, whatever it may be. Or is our confidence in God? In His abilities through Christ, what He can do with us. Are we going to look at our circumstances too much? Of course we need to analyze them and know what’s going on, but are we going to trust in those plans or trust in the Lord. We need to keep our trust in the Lord and what He said and not be afraid to take an unpopular position. We need to be bold and walk out the conviction that God puts in our hearts.
Closing
Thanks for listening to Your Faith At Work with Dr. Ryan S. Howard, if you enjoyed this podcast, we’d love for you to subscribe, share, and leave us a review. Be sure to visit your YourFaithAtWork.org to download your free copy of 21 Days to a New Workplace You. And remember, God wants to partner with you in your work every day.
